Nationalists, Kurds clash at Turkey university

ANKARA: Police used tear gas and water cannon to break up clashes between Kurdish and nationalist students at an Ankara university campus that left 15 people injured late on Wednesday, Turkish media have reported.

The hours-long scuffles, which saw both sides take up sticks and stones, reportedly erupted when students sympathising with Turkey’s Kurdish insurgents confronted those from a nationalist group at Ankara’s prestigious Middle East Technical University (ODTU).

Police were called in to put an end to the violence that also wrecked several vehicles and damaged school property.

The incident comes as Ankara and the rebel leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are negotiating steps to a permanent peace that would end the outlawed PKK’s insurgency, which in almost three decades has killed 45,000 people.

Last week, Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler announced an increase in student unrest across Turkey in 2013, which he said was likely to be related to the tension linked to the fragile peace process.

Earlier in April, four students were hurt in clashes between Kurdish and Islamist groups at a university campus in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.

Turkish universities are frequently hotbeds for conflict between student groups affiliated to different political camps.

Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast was particularly prone to fatal scuffles and protests in the 1980s. Student clashes there have noticeably subsided in recent years, in part because of sterner police action.